Trial by Fire
by Butcher-Bird190
Summary: Kongou is pitted against against a foe far deadlier than any mere abyssal. Unarmed, she'll have to use her wits to carry her out of this situation alive. KC x Parasyte/Marvel It's basically just a large fight scene right now, but I might add some extra chapters detailing the aftermath.
1. Chapter 1: A Challenger Approaches

Kongou woke lying face first on the cold concrete with one hell of a pounding headache. The last thing she remembered was getting dressed and then *poof* here she was. Even stranger, her naval uniform had been replaced with some sort of civilian get-up composed of what she recognized as jeans and a t-shirt. Since her rebirth as a human, Kongou hadn't worn anything other than her approved naval attire, and as a result, she felt her new clothes to be almost alien. She sat up with a groan and had a good look at her surroundings. Well one thing was for certain: She was no longer anywhere near where she started her day. The familiar blue skyline of Yokusuka naval base was replaced by a heavy layer of industrial fog, and Kongou herself appeared to be in a port loading zone surrounded by various multi-colored cargo crates. If this was some kind of prank set up by the devious minds of her sisters, she swore she would personally scrap all 3 of them once she figured out what was going on. Kongou really didn't have much time to ponder the implications of the predicament that she was in before a heavy impact hit her in the back and sent her flying at breakneck speed into a large shipping crate.

Lying in the crumpled remains of what once was a steel shipping crate, Kongou slowly lifted her head up. Kongou barely had enough time to think about how much pain she was in before something hit her again, this time knocking her high into the air

It was at this point, midair, upside down, and head swimming with pain, that she got a good view of her attacker. To her utmost surprise, it appeared to be a regular human man. However, as she scanned her assailant's features more carefully, her surprise turned to horror as she realized there was something very, very, wrong about him. His face lacked any kind of emotion and seemed to be more of an artificial mask than anything else. This rather disturbing fact was further compounded by his slick black bodysuit that roiled and rippled around his body, so much so that Kongou swore that it was somehow alive. Regardless, Kongou was certain she had to rid the earth of this inhuman abyssal monstrosity.

Still in the air and upside down, Kongou did a graceful flip to right herself before landing deftly on her feet. "Take this!" she exclaimed before letting loose with her quad 36 cm gun turrets. Nothing happened. It was at this point that Kongou realized she didn't actually *have* her quad 41 cm gun turrets with her. Naturally, Kongou did the next best thing: she ran.

Kongou felt like she had been running for hours, surrounded on all sides by walls of steel crates. Even though she was running at her top speed of 30 knots, the monster (she had decided to call it a parasyte for now) easily kept pace. Whatever that thing was, it had actually changed the structure of its lower legs to allow it to move quicker than what would have been physically possible for a human. She took a quick glance back and observed how the creature's previously human-shaped head and torso had changed into something resembling an arrowhead to improve its aerodynamic qualities. All this would have been incredibly fascinating for Kongou if not for the fact that it was doing its damn best to try and kill her.

As she continued to run with the parasyte hot on her heels, Kongou noticed a very disturbing pattern. The steel crates that were rushing past her seemed to form some kind of maze or labyrinth, which meant that any moment now, she was bound to hit a dead end.

Her worries were soon translated into reality as she made a left through a thin alleyway of crates and entered into an enclosed circular clearing. Much to her chagrin, the clearing was surrounded on all sides by a formidable concrete wall that stretched to the heavens. She was trapped. Kongou skidded to a halt, causing bits of gravel to kick up around her. She quickly turned around and looked behind her. Sure enough, the parasyte stood firmly between her and the narrow alleyway that was her ticket out of the circular enclosure. After briefly considering an attempt to actually scale the looming concrete walls that held her prisoner, she decided it would be in her interest to settle things the way she knew best: A traditional British duel to the death.

In reality, the fight occurring in the concrete enclosure was anything but British or traditional. Instead of two noble gentleman duking out their differences with a pair smoothbore pistols, the contestants in this fight composed of the literal personification of a WWII battleship and an eldritch abomination. Despite all of this Kongou still thought of it as a good old fashioned british duel because that's just the way she is.

Kongou quickly shifted into a combat stance with her weight set low to the ground and her hands balled into fists. Being a kanmasu battleship, hand to hand combat was usually a tactic of desperation more than anything else. Despite this, Kongou was well versed in Bajutsu (a Japanese form of defensive martial art), and could easily hold her own against a similarly strong foe in close-quarters combat. Kongou sized up her foe, who despite being unable to communicate any kind of emotion through either facial expression or body language seemed all too eager for a fight. Then with a flurry of brown hair, and with a battle cry of "BURNING LOOOOOOOOOVE", Kongou attacked.

In her efforts to take the monster by surprise, Kongou decided to make a rather daring offensive maneuver. Zig-zagging to make her approach vector unpredictable, Kongou charged and closed the distance between her and the parasyte in seconds. She feigned an attack from the left side, and when she saw the parasyte raise its arms to block her, she juked right and dashed forward, launching herself like a coiled spring at the parasyte's exposed right side. Kongou saw the parasyte try and correct its stance to account for her unexpected angle of attack, but it was too slow and Kongou sailed past its futile attempts to block her. Now only inches away from her target, Kongou cocked her fists back and prepared to unleash a devastating 1-2 punch aimed for the parasyte's unprotected gut. It was at this precise moment that Kongou noticed something was off. The parasyte, who had pursued her through the steel maze with unparalleled agility and shockingly quick reflexes had seemed almost lethargic in its attempts to block her latest offensive. It was almost as if the parasyte's seemingly poor defense efforts constituted….. a trap!

At the last possible moment, the parasyte sidestepped her attack with blistering speed and Kongou's punches hit nothing but air. Kongou's momentum carried her forward and past the parasyte before she landed in a heap a short distance away. In an instant, the parasyte was on top of her. Panic flashed in Kongou's eyes when she realized that the Parasyte had, despite her superhuman strength, pinned her by the wrists and ankles to the ground with black tendrils of flesh that grew out of its back. Kongou struggled and felt the tendrils begin to give way to her overwhelming strength. However, she also noticed that the parasyte was rearing its fist high in the air for a clean shot at her head. It was going to be close. Kongou had just barely managed to rip herself free when an onyx black fist planted itself into the ground like a jackhammer where her head had been just moments before. She then felt a spray of broken concrete ping off the left side of her face courtesy of the impact force. Glancing to her left, Kongou inspected the damage to the ground and saw that the parasyte's fist was buried up to the wrist in concrete shattered by the mighty blow. Kongou knew that such a blow wouldn't have been instantly lethal to her, but at the same time, it would have left her seeing stars for far longer than she would like to while in the company of this abomination.

The parasyte once again tried to pin her to the ground. Kongou rolled away from the parasyte's grasp and stood up before trying to land another punch. This time, Kongou threw a fast left hook, hoping to catch the parasyte on the side of the head. The parasyte stepped nimbly back and barely dodged Kongou's blow by throwing its head back a split second before Kongou's fist would have connected. However, Kongou had anticipated this and had leapt high into the air above the parasyte as soon as it began to dodge. She saw her plan come together as the parasyte, who was already caught horribly off balance by its attempt to dodge her left hook, looked up as it realized her intent to perform a body slam. Kongou grinned as she prepared to quash the parasyte beneath her like the bug it was.

"I got you now, you little *****"

Kongou rolled to her side intending to slam her shoulder onto the top of the parasyte's head. Suddenly, the Parasyte shimmered for an instant before disappearing from her field of view. Kongou let out along string of curses before gravity did its job and brought her crashing back down to mother earth. For the second time in a day, Kongou found herself lying in an undignified heap on the ground.

The parasyte then let out a guttural, inhuman laugh. Was it... mocking her? Kongou didn't know, and she didn't care as she recovered and sent out a flurry of warship strength punches and kicks. While Kongou was inhumanly strong, the parasyte was easily able to dodge her attacks, whose speed paled in comparison to the parasyte's own blazing fast strikes. Once again, she was unable to connect even a single one.

The parasyte swiftly counterattacked with a roundhouse kick. Kongou saw the kick coming from a mile away, but she was simply too slow to react in time. The kick connected and Kongou ended up with her face planted firmly in the cold concrete a good distance away.

 _I'm going to feel that in the morning..._

Kongou sat up just in time to see something truly horrifying: The parasyte's hands stretched and twisted until they formed dozens of razor sharp blades mounted atop long fleshy appendages that served as some kind of swinging arm. Then, with a snarl, it attacked with a flurry of blades. Any normal human would have been reduced to a fleshy pile of skin, organs, and bone from that attack. Luckily for Kongou, one of the perks of being a kanmasu meant that her skin was effectively equivalent in protection to her original 280 millimeters of cold hard armor grade steel. Instead of feeling the cruel blades slice her flesh into ribbons, Kongou merely felt a series of dull impacts roll off her body. Kongou grimaced as she was struck hundreds of times in mere seconds while the blades sparked and bounced off of her skin. "I'm a bit tougher than i look, wouldn't you say?" Kongou mocked as she leapt away from the attack, completely unhurt. Now, it was the parasyte's turn to be shocked, or at least that's what Kongou reckoned. It stopped attacking and just kind of stood there with a perplexed look on its face, almost as if it was a robot and something didn't quite compute.

Kongou used this opportunity to grab a rusty crowbar that had been lying near her and hurl it with all her might at the parasyte. A sonic boom shattered the still air of the enclosure as the thrown crowbar violently smashed through the sound barrier and flew right at the wide-eyed parasyte. This time, Kongou's attack struck home and the crowbar impaled itself solidly into the skull of the parasyte, knocking it flat on its back. That really should have been the end of it, but Kongou's eyes widened as she realized that the parasyte wasn't quite dead. First, its legs began to twitch. Next, it stood up and looked right at her. Then, with one hand, it yanked the crowbar out of itself and Kongou watched with horror as the wound she had caused began to close of its own accord. The parasyte opened its mouth, revealing a set of razor sharp teeth, and spoke back to her in its gruff voice the very words she had just used to mock it: "I'm a bit tougher than I look". Kongou did the smart thing in this situation and bolted at flank speed for the alleyway and out of the enclosure.


	2. Chapter 2: End of the Beggining

_18..._

Kongou was in quite the predicament. She was trapped in a strange industrial shipping area fighting for her life against some nightmarish abomination of man and parasite. Now Kongou wasn't a stranger to weird occurrences (after all, she had spent most of her life as an unintelligent nonthinking 26,000 ton hulk of steel), but whatever mess she was in right now was definitely approaching the top of the strangest things that had ever happened to her. Kongou's priority at the moment was to find a way back to her home in Yokosuka, but she simply couldn't focus on that task while being incessantly chased down by the Parasyte and being forced to fight it. Kongou had decided long ago that it needed to be killed, which was precisely the problem because no matter what Kongou tried, whether it be blunt trauma by way of fist or a crowbar through the skull, it simply refused to die.

 _19..._

Of course she could always try to blow it up, but given how Kongou lacked any kind of explosives on-hand, that was a strategy that would have to wait.

 _20..._

Kongou noted that the parasyte possessed some kind of extreme regenerative abilities, which when combined with its quick reflexes and speed, made it effectively invulnerable to whatever damage Kongou managed to throw at it. On the flipside, Kongou observed that the parasyte was having a hard time hurting her as well. However, after multiple skirmishes and fights against the parasyte, she was beggining to wear down. While her skin gave her the equivalent of 280 mm of armor-grade steel in protection against piercing attacks like blades and gunfire, it didn't do nearly as much for blunt trauma. So while the parasyte's attempts to slice her had resulted in nothing more than shredded clothes (Kongou hadn't liked them much anyways), the parasyte's powerful punches and kicks had left nasty bruises all over her body. Kongou knew that if she kept fighting battles of pure attrition, she wouldn't emerge victorious.

 _21..._

It was simple: If Kongou wanted to win, she would either have to find something to shut down the parasyte's healing factor or do enough continual damage to it at a rate which it's healing factor wouldn't be able to keep up.

 _22..._

Yup, that was the 22nd shipping container Kongou had been slammed into since the parasyte had gotten a nice grapple on her with its powerful length-changing appendages. It had simply grabbed onto her legs and began slamming her around like a ragdoll into the steel crate "walls" of the maze. Kongou had actually taken the liberty to keep track of just how many shipping crates she was colliding with, as it helped take her mind off the fact that she was probably going to die. In fact, she had come up with quite the ingenious plan to free herself from her current situation all while being thrown around like a leaf in a hurricane. If she wasn't in so much pain, Kongou would have been quite proud of herself.

As the appendage swung her violently upwards in preparation to smack her into the 23rd shipping crate, Kongou jerked her upper body just far enough forward to allow her hands to close around the flesh of the parasyte's appendage. Then she squeezed and twisted the appendage like she was wringing a towel. With a hiss of pain, the parasyte instinctively let go, and Kongou, who was in the process of being thrown upwards by the appendage, was carried by her momentum over the edge and out of the maze.

Kongou barely had time to celebrate her "victory" before the ground came up to meet her. She skipped and bounced along the ground and for quite a while then slid to a halt. If she hadn't been protected by her natural armor, Kongou knew that she would have accumulated enough severe lacerations and abrasions from her latest fall to cause a minor bleed-out. As it was, Kongou noted that the ground she hit actually came off quite a bit worse than she did. While she received only a minor bruise on the left kneecap from her initial impact, the asphalt she had skipped and bounced across was heavily torn up and scratched while her initial impact was denoted by a small crater.

The groan of bending steel startled Kongou, and she looked back towards the maze in time to see a long black appendage stick its way above the maze's steel walls. This was all the motivation Kongou needed to stand up and start running.

Kongou was getting tired of running. If Secretary ship Nagato was here, she'd probably tell Kongou to "woman up" and fight the damn thing. However, if there was one thing that Kongou was more tired of than running, it was being swung around and beaten up like a doggy chew-toy. Kongou also noted that she had a particular aversion to _dying._ And by that sound logic to guide her thought processes, Kongou decided to keep running.

Sprinting with all her might, Kongou actually managed to open the distance between her and the pursuing parasyte by quite a bit. A large grey building loomed in the distance. She had no idea what the building was used for, but her gut instinct told her that the key to defeating the parasyte lay within its mysterious grey walls. She began to run towards it, but then hesitated. The last time Kongou had trusted her gut instinct, she had received a 16 inch armor piercing shell to the forehead. After spending another few moments weighing her options and realizing that her other choices would likely result in her untimely death, Kongou decided to follow the narrow dirt path leading to the structure. A cloud of dust formed behind Kongou as she made a beeline towards the building. As Kongou got closer, she began to make out the details of the structure. It looked ancient with an archaic blocky foundation and rusted-out corrugated iron side walls. A single smokestack loomed over the rest of the structure, and it belched out thick black smoke that blotted out the sky. The entire structure was devoid of windows and a single catwalk led to an opening on the side which Kongou assumed was the building's entrance point. Kongou took a quick glance behind her, and duly noted that the Parasyte had almost managed to catch up. Kongou, having reached the front of the building, quickly dashed up the catwalk and into the structure itself.

Kongou gasped as a wave of heat slammed into her. Kongou took a second to examine exactly what she had just walked into. She scanned her surroundings and saw that she was on an elevated metal walkway that overlooked giant roiling cauldrons of molten metal. Kongou was in a metal foundry.

A loud noise from behind snapped Kongou out of her thoughts. The parasyte barged through the flimsy metal door that Kongou had closed upon entering the foundry and charged right at her. Kongou ran across the metal walkway, but it was only moments later that she realized she was trapped. The elevated walkway spanned only halfway across the foundry and ended in a small control panel that regulated the temperature of the cauldrons. Kongou ran to the end of the walkway, skidded to a halt, and took a quick glance at the control panel, noting the different temperatures of the various cauldrons. An idea then popped into Kongou's head. It was crazy, delusional, and insane, so just the kind of idea that a Kongou class Kanmasu would come up with. With the Parasyte just feet away from her, Kongou took a deep breath and flung herself over the protective guardrail and into one of the cauldrons of bubbling liquid metal.

Now Kongou was crazy, but she wasn't quite crazy enough to concoct an escape plan that involved her own death. Kongou knew that all Kanmasu, battleships in particular, had a high degree of heat-resistance. Direct contact with temperatures between the boiling point of water (212 deg. F) but below the melting point of steel (2,700 deg. F) would cause a Kanmasu varying degrees of discomfort and even pain depending on which class of shipgirl and what temperature in specific, but likely wouldn't cause severe injury or death. Kongou had used the control panel display to find a very specific cauldron to jump into. She had chosen a cauldron that held molten aluminum, which due to its temperature of just 1,400 deg. F, was relatively safe for Kongou to jump into. At least that was the theory. Kongou really hoped that what she had been taught about Kanmasu heat resistance was true as she entered the molten metal with a splash.

 _Huh, this isn't so bad_ , thought Kongou as soon as she was completely under the liquid metal. Kongou felt as if she was in a hot tub that had been cranked up a little too high: unpleasant, but not painfully or unbearably so. With 30 seconds (or however long Kongou could hold her breath) of reprieve from the Parasyte, Kongou began to think strategy.

Kongou decided that it would be best to ambush the parasyte and stab or cut the parasyte with something extremely hot. She realized that doing so would instantly cauterize any wounds and prevent the parasyte from healing itself. Thus with her brainstorming session over and her lungs signaling a need for a breath of air, Kongou quickly clambered out of the cauldron and hit the floor with a thud.

Kongou then noticed that her torn and shredded civilian clothes had been incinerated into nothingness by exposure to the intense heat within the cauldron. Kongou glanced around, scanning the area for something to wear. By some act of god, Kongou spotted a full set of clothes including a blue hoodie and long pants just lying on the ground a few meters away from her. She scampered over and slipped them on while quietly thanking her luck. Surprised by the pungent odor of burnt denim, Kongou looked down and was shocked to see wisps of grey smoke rise from her clothes, which were slowly beginning to singe and blacken. Apparently, Kongou's impromptu soak in molten aluminum had left her body temperature scorchingly high.

Kongou heard a series of progressively louder thumps and realized that the parasyte had somehow found its way off the elevated walkway and onto the main floor of the foundry where Kongou was currently standing. With the acoustic properties of the foundry causing the parasyte's heavy footsteps to echo around, Kongou was unable to pinpoint from which direction the parasyte was approaching her. Kongou squinted her eyes in an attempt to spot the parasyte, but the foundry's poor illumination combined with its smoky and disorientating atmosphere made such a deed nigh impossible. Suddenly, a black tendril came out of the darkness and wrapped itself roughly around Kongou's waist before it recoiled and withdrew into the unseen. A shriek of pain rebounded off the walls and Kongou realized that the parasyte had actually burned itself through its contact with her superheated skin. The parasyte made another attempt to charge at Kongou, but was held firmly at bay by the waves of heat rolling off of her body. Kongou felt her body temperature begin to lower, which meant that it would only be a matter of time before she would cool down enough for the parasyte to grab onto, and when that happened… Kongou decided it was best not to think about those kinds of things.

Kongou decided to use the time that her current body temperature bought her to look for any kind of heated object that she could use to impale the parasyte. After dashing in between several of the large cauldrons of molten metal, Kongou spotted a small gas furnace up against a wall that wrapped around several red-hot bars of iron, each about a meter long and a few inches thick. Kongou, upon realizing that those bars were just the right size to stab the parasyte with, ran over to examine them closer. It was at this point that another problem arose: How exactly Kongou was supposed to utilize the bars. While the immersion in molten aluminum hadn't even been painful for her, Kongou knew that the temperature of the metal bars, which approached the melting point of steel, would be significantly harder for her to deal with. She looked at the equipment lying around, and upon realizing that none of the tongs or grippers would allow her to wield the metal bars with any kind of dexterity, slipped on a pair of welding gloves that she found nearby. Looking at the fierce glow of the metal rods, Kongou slowly brought her gloved hands towards the furnace. She hadn't even made direct contact with the red-hot metal when her gloves burst into flames. Startled, Kongou quickly threw them off and watched as they burnt themselves to ashes on the floor of the foundry.

A black tendril shot out from behind Kongou and wrapped itself around her leg. This time, it didn't pull away. Kongou was out of time. Kongou struggled, but due to her fatigue, she was unable to break free. Another tendril grabbed onto Kongou's free leg and in unison the appendages began to pull her slowly toward the looming parasyte. With no other options left, Kongou grabbed onto one of the red-hot iron bars with her bare hand and used it to slash at the dark tendrils that bound her captive. The semi-molten metal burned through the parasyte's tendrils with ease, and much to Kongou's satisfaction and relief, prevented them from regenerating. The parasyte looked at the smoking stumps that were once its most powerful limbs and in doing so, wailed a cry of anguish that reverberated throughout the foundry.

Kongou took a quick glance downwards and saw that the heat emanating from the superheated metal clasped firmly within her right hand had caused her already singed hoodie to burn away completely from the wrist all the way up to her elbow. As for her hand, holding onto the red-hot metal had been uncomfortable for Kongou, but like the molten aluminum hadn't yet been painful. However, unlike her dip into the molten aluminum, Kongou's continued contact with the red hot metal resulted in a small stinging sensation along her palm that started out nonexistent, but increased in intensity as Kongou kept contact with the scorching hot metal. As Kongou kept hold of the metal while waiting for the parasyte's next move, she felt a few lances of pain shoot up her arm. Realizing that she could only hold onto her red-hot weapon for so long before she would have to drop it, Kongou decided to make the first move. She was going to end this here and now.

Kongou dashes towards the parasyte with her ad hoc sword, her eyes glued to the target, waiting for it to attempt a block. Time seems to slow as the parasyte's hands and arms morph into wickedly long blades.

As Kongou lashes out with a side swipe from her flaming blade, the parasyte brings its own blades up to block its path. With a crack like thunder, red hot iron strikes synthetic bio-steel, echoing loudly and causing a shower of sparks and smoke to envelop both combatants.

As the smoke clears, Kongou is able to see that the parasyte's blades are cleanly embedded into the soft heated metal of her own weapon. Kongou also notices that the shower of sparks, while leaving Kongou unharmed, has burned several small wounds onto the parasyte's head and neck, further accentuating its terrifying appearance. With a growl, the parasyte attempts to pull its bladed arms free from the red-hot metal, but they are stuck fast. As the heat from Kongou's superheated metal bar begins to transfer to the parasyte's blades and down its arm, it lets out an ear-splitting shriek. As Kongou grimly watches, the parasyte's arms begin to blacken and sizzle as they carbonize. In an attempt to save the rest of its body from being burned, the parasyte rips off its own charred and ruined arms, leaving only cauterized atrophied stumps hanging from its sagging body.

With a quick flick of her wrist, Kongou flings away what remains of the parasyte's disembodied arms off of her weapon. She takes a moment to observe the now helpless parasyte, but sees nothing but hatred and death in its eyes.

With one clean stroke, Kongou separates the parasyte's head from its body before plunging her red-hot weapon through the chest of the parasyte's now decapitated body. The parasyte jerks and wriggles as it feels its own life force being sucked away by the ardent blaze that is Kongou's blade. As the parasyte dies, the color drains away from its body, leaving only a bone white corpse that crumbles to dust before Kongou's eyes.

Kongou withdrew her bar of superheated metal from the pile of ash that once constituted her greatest foe. As her adrenaline began to run down, Kongou felt a strong burning sensation coming from her right hand. With a yelp, Kongou quickly dropped the superheated piece of metal and examined her hand. Due to her prolonged direct contact with the searingly hot semi-molten iron bar, Kongou's right hand had been rendered both red and raw. While her hand would be tender for a day or two, Kongou recognized with a sigh of relief that no serious harm had been done. Her multitude of large bruises and cracked ribs were a different story however, and she doubted that they would heal quickly without some form of medical treatment. Regardless, Kongou was just glad that it was all over, and that she could finally begin to find out how to get back to her home. With determination in her eyes, Kongou walked out of the dark foundry and into the blinding sunlight of an unknown world.


	3. Update!

Well that's that. Literally the first piece of creative writing I have done... ever. If you want me to continue the story, PM me or write a review!

Otherwise I will be writing another Kancolle character vs. X when i have some free time.


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